24 Apr 10 - British researchers claim that a sudden 16F (9C) drop in sea
temperature more than 137 million years ago was the first step towards
their long gradual extinction, says this article by Andrew Hough.

Gregory Price of Plymouth University, who led the
study, said the sudden cooling in the Atlantic Gulf Stream came when the
Earth was in a ''greenhouse'' climate very similar to today's.

The drop was so severe that numerous species of
dinosaur previously living in warm, shallow seas, land and swamps would
have died out.

“We now believe that they died out gradually and it
is very possible that this could have been caused by a series of
climatic changes," said Price.

"The drop in temperature is thought to have occurred
because high levels of CO2 were in the atmosphere which caused global
temperatures to rise and polar ice to melt – a phenomenon currently
predicted for Earth."

This is silly. I agree that
the dinosaurs were wiped out by climate change
(an ice age, along with a bunch of
other things, all triggered by a magnetic
reversal), but to blame it on high
levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) is ludicrous.

Carbon dioxide levels do not
drive climate, they RESPOND to climate. The
ocean is a CO2 sink - a carbon
dioxide reservoir. When the oceans cool, they
absorb carbon dioxide. When the
oceans warm, they release carbon dioxide.

Think of a bottle of homemade
beer exploding if it gets too warm. That's
the CO2 escaping. The CO2 doesn't
warm the beer. If it did, don't you think
someone would have invented carbon
dioxide stoves and ovens by now?

First comes the warming. Then
comes the rise in CO2.

It's so simple that a grade school
student could understand it ... if their
teachers would only tell them the
truth.